A Heart to Heart
by queenofowls
Summary: Dedue sees the professor exiting the ballroom and presumes to follow. They have a heart to heart, and by accident, an innocent request to dance with her student leads to a much more intimate exchange. [Dedue/f!Byleth] - Dedicated to Milleniall28 who asked for a dance based on the Goddess Tower event.


**Contains spoilers and some dialogue from Dedue's Goddess Tower event.**

* * *

There are many words that Dedue does not expect to hear as he stands besides the professor in the evening chill of the Goddess Tower. First, of course, there is the fact that he did not intend on coming here tonight at all, but the sound of the professor footsteps made him curious enough to follow.

_"What are you doing here?"_

The question was benign... and yet the course of their conversation has lead to his making a vow with her, one that she accepts. Those are the first words, he thinks, that he did not expect to hear: the ones from himself about his hopes for the future. He had not been aware that he imagined a future for himself, after all. But the second...

They come from her lips with the slightest of smiles, the gentlest of the professor's constant surprises.

"Will you share a dance with me?"

He wonders if she is a glutton for punishment. _Are her toes not sore enough from the first time they joined hands and aligned hips?_ But then... when it comes to dance, he has always been a poor student. His siblings would laugh if they saw him flustering as he is now.

He reminds the professor, just in case she's forgotten. "I do not know how to dance. If you wish to teach me, then I will endeavor to learn." The Professor does not comment. Instead, her expression turns pleased as she offers a satisfied nod in reply. Dedue clears his throat feeling strangely... is shy the word? He cannot find another to describe the light hesitance in his heart, the uncertainty he feels as he wonders if he should hold out an elbow for her to grasp as they returned to the ballroom. It is a gesture he has sometimes seen one student do to another, but the real hesitance lies in his imaginings for the consequences.

_If she were to take his arm..._

_If she were to do so in front of the others_... her reputation could be ruined. And yet.

As he imagines the professor's light, warm touch, he cannot help but think for a moment that there is a chance, however slight, that he doesn't care. Dedue clears his throat lightly, his arm unoffered for her to claim. "Let us return." And then, subtly, he lifts his elbow.

Subtly, because if she does not take hold, he can tell himself that it is because she did not see. Subtly, because if she does not take hold, he can hold onto more tightly to his resolve to keep his priorities-his heart-in its place.

Her arm slips through the loop of his elbow and right away, Byleth is nestled against him in a way that feels... unpleasantly perfect. Unpleasantly because he is unsure he will stop thinking about this moment any time soon, and perfect for the very same reasons. He can tell that his next hours, waking or not, will be filled with memories of the echo of her touch. "If the cold is too much, I will lend you my coat." The stiff collar neck of Garreg Mach's uniform evening wear rubs against his throat. The clothing is stiff from lack of use-he never imagined himself to be the type to be invited out on any given evening and so, he'd folded it neatly in the back of the corner drawer along with other useless pieces, thinking it would never be seen again... And yet, when he thought about arriving at the ball, he could not help but dig into that dusty section of his dormitory room to laundering the clothes anew. Even his earring is brightly polished, all so that he would look his best. He does not allow himself to think about _why_ he wishes to look his best, who he wishes to look his best for.

He'd ignored the thoughts all while he prepared for the evening.

Even so... he cannot avoid such thoughts now.

With her so close now, Dedue cannot help but wonder if she notices, if she can smell the light scent of the soap he used to clean the clothing. Normally, he sweat into his normal academy uniform... did such smells bother her? Such thoughts make him anxious, and for the first time in his life, he feels his own age-that he is just a boy of nineteen forced to grow up too fast.

Their silence is never uncomfortable, but Dedue cannot stop himself from speaking, knowing that she will pull away to look at him. _Each time she pulls away_, he reasons, _she will think about the fact that we are in close association and reconsider her proximity as she notes again who and what I am._

A man of Duscur.

A pariah of Faerghus.

A-

"I am warm enough."

...A man who is absolutely trapped, who cannot help but to choose to be here, even if he knows he ought not to be.

She draws close again, her voice filled with a softness that he has never been privileged to hear before. He feels his heartbeat quicken as her head tilts against his arm, the warm weight pressing into his body. Dedue wishes for a bizarrely painful moment that all the nerves in his body could gather in the space beneath her head so that he could feel the comfortable weight of all of her, close to him. "I am warm enough right where I am." _Warm enough_... He opens his mouth to ask _what_ she is doing and maybe even why she is doing it, if only because he fears that he will mistake her actions for all the things his heart is secretly hoping for.

Not only that, but truly, Dedue is just that unused to allowing himself to be in the moment and enjoy the intimate passing of time undisturbed. Before his racing mind can figure out how to word his question, Byleth's steady voice floats upwards, filled with a warm, generous energy. "I'm sorry to rely on you like this-I'm just a little tired."

And what else can he say to the seeming lie?

"I see."

...Aside from words that mean nothing, that is.

It's a simply reply, but in reality, he is well aware of the fact that if she were weary for the rest of her life, then the space of his arm would be reserved for her head alone.

Such devotion-such _sincere_ devotion-startles him. Displeases him. But it's so genuine that he cannot brush neither it nor her away. Even if he were to use his usual discouragements of idle affection to inform her again that she should stay far away from a man of Duscur, he would still need to use normal precautions that they not spend more time together than strictly necessary. After all, he... cannot avoid her. Not as his professor at the very least. But also... not as his constant greenhouse companion, either. Whether it pleases him or not-and it does, even if he is ill prepared to make such an admission-the professor is there to stay.

At the academy.

In Blue Lion House.

In his line of vision.

Even in the deeper crevices of his unwilling heart.

The walk back to the ballroom is painfully, uncomfortably, wonderfully slow, and Byleth's head only leaves his warmth when she straightens once they approach the large doors to the open hall.

He thinks to pull his arm from hers. Surely, when they enter, other persons will stare... but he cannot make himself do it. Not just because he appreciates the professor's touch, but also because... he cannot help but think that perhaps he is being too willing to allow himself to tolerate the shame any longer.

There's an ache in his chest. His sisters, the fellow people of his village, his parents... they all loved to dance, and in the ballroom, gliding across the floor, it is perhaps the closest he will ever get to those precious, lost moments where they would beg him to join in their play and he would decline again and again. An emotion he cannot name... anger, perhaps, takes him by the throat, but he swallows it down.

This is not a night for anger. Duscur... Duscur is dead. There is no point in being full of hate if it cannot help him towards his end goal. To never see another child's world burn down as he did the day he lost his family. Lost his happiness. Lost his will to live.

"Dedue?" His eyes trail downwards to the woman on his arm. "Are you ready to go in?" This concern for him, unusual and intoxicating, almost hurts to hear. Dedue nods solemnly as it washes over him. Perhaps this is the blessing of the goddess of Fódlan, to have this moment with her. He tries not to grimace at the thought. Where was this goddess when his people were burning? When his sister was crying out for him as the executioner's axe severed her ties to life and his mother and father lay dead in the hearth, still in each other's arms?

Dedue lets out a quiet breath, watches it steam towards the empty heavens until there is nothing left in his lungs. Then he breathes in again. "I am not, Professor." She looks at him, her eyebrows tilting down.

"...You didn't really leave the party because you thought you were a nuisance to the others. Did you, Dedue?" She says it, but not as a question. He wonders how she knows, but... she is a professor. _His_ professor. It would be unwise of him to underestimate her.

He wants to shake his head, but he merely looks back towards the sky at the glitter of stars so bright they almost hurt to look upon.

"It is difficult to be amongst the other students. His Highness does not look at me with such eyes, but the others..." He shakes his head and looks down at her, pulling away to fold his arms into each other. "I do not wish to be in a room with so much hate. The chaperoning monks who cannot trust me to seek out Flayn or assist in protecting the Archbishop. The students who think my people to be traitors, like Ingrid. The students who find us repulsive and elements of our culture barbaric-" He shakes his head quietly. "I cannot even allow myself to make Duscur's food when I am on kitchen duty for fear of offense. Can you imagine, professor, finding a people who do not exist barbaric?"

"I cannot, Dedue." Her reply is quiet, but her eyes are direct. He cannot help but continue, his own voice a murmur filled with an emotion he just barely manages to hold at bay.

"What culture do we have _left_ to hate, Professor?"

Byleth listens to him without judgement before her eyes trail towards the ground.

"I admit..." She pauses carefully. "I do not know much of Duscur, much less of what it was before or after Faerghus murdered it." Her words are frank-but the bold and forward way she says it... not that Duscur "was destroyed" or that Faerghus "retaliated"-the first too general, the second too blaming... but to say that it was murdered... The acknowledgement overwhelms him with something he cannot name. "But I do not hate Duscur, and I do not hate you. Not only that, but I will not force you to return." She smoothes down the lapels of her jacket with light hands. "True, if we enter that room, you need only to look at me." Her hand lights gently on his shoulder, strokes lightly down the fabric of his uniform's forearm. "But I only wish to dance with you. Anywhere will do."

"Anywhere?" He echoes the word as though he has never heard it before. And perhaps, such kindness, such consideration of his feelings _is_ something he has not experienced at the academy before. He has always faced hate with apathetic passivity in the hopes that those who held it would lose interest... but here the professor is, offering him a literal and emotional hand to relieve the weighty feelings in his heart.

He takes it and slowly draws the professor flush against him, grasping her waist with much more determined fingers. She lifts a hand for him to take and places the other on his shoulder. "This isn't the right music, you know." They're still right outside of the ballroom doors, the music playing in a lilting, delicate manner. For a moment, Dedue wishes that he could lead the professor in a dance to the rich, heady tunes of Duscur, wishes that he knew the steps that his siblings had tried so earnestly to teach him. Instead, he edges a bit closer as the ghost of a smile flits across her face. "Do you remember the steps?"

"Not particularly," he admits. The professor only looks at him, the dark glint of an unnameable emotion in her eyes. He wishes he knew what that spark meant, but he does not.

"Then let's try something a little simpler. Just follow my lead, Dedue." She seals the space between them, chest-to-chest with him now. "My toes are prepared."

To his surprise... she does not lead him in the complex steps of their first dance. Instead, the professor places both of her wrists against his shoulders, her hands lightly locking around his neck. He doesn't even have to ask-his hands naturally fall to her waist. They sway back and forth, the wind shuffling leaves behind them in the glow of the evening moon. Their tempo is slow and steady in contrast to the bright music behind them. For a moment, he considers that this dance too does not suit the music, not that it is important. He is certain she knows his thoughts, because there is no other reason her presence should be so deliberately calming otherwise.

The space between them does not need the words but he says them anyway.

"Thank you, Professor." She merely nods, gazing into his eyes in a way that makes him feel as though she will try to understand anything he tries to utter, no matter how badly articulated. Her eyes are an ocean, and he cannot help himself. He falls towards their glossy surface, his lips brushing against hers as they dance beneath the stars for the future he dreams of. For the past he has lost. For Fódlan.

For Duscur.

It's just a light touch at first... until their swaying stills so their lips can press together completely, Byleth's arms tightening around his neck. He does not know where to place his hands, so he leaves one on her waist and brings the other to ghost up her jawline and cup her face. He does not know what to do with his lips, but he knows what feels right.

And what feels right is to tilt his head for better access as they slowly, tenderly explore each other. What feels right is to pull her distant waist closer. What feels right... is to admit the he loves the professor.

At least, to himself.

He hears Byleth's gasp, and in a moment, he knows that the kiss is not a figment his imagination. Her wide-eyed stare and the way she pulls away from his arms tell him so. Dedue freezes, hand still outstretched in the air where it once cupped her cheek.

_What has he done? Of course, she would be repulsed. Of course she... would be like the others..._

His brain rejects the thought before he can finish it, the thought of her kind gaze-of all she has done for him-soothing him. When he gets the confidence to look her in the eyes, there is no hate in them. And with such flushed cheeks, the emotion on her face couldn't, in fact, be further.

He flushes, flusters, tries to figure what to say. _He should not have kissed her. _"Professor, I-"

She interrupts him. "Your oath in the Goddess Tower. Did you really believe in the future you swore?"

He isn't sure why she's asking now. "Of course."

She shuts her eyes, her voice soft. "Sothis... please... let me go back. You know why I can't let this happen."

_Sothis?_ Does the professor mean to pray aloud at his hearing?

The professor takes his hand in both of hers. "I'm sorry. I can't let you remember this. But Dedue, I..." She trails off, squeezing her eyes tight as she continues in a murmur more to herself than anyone else. "...No, you're right, Sothis. If I say it, it'll only hurt me when I'm the only one who remembers."

Dedue stares Byleth in confusion. Before he can ask what she means, he watches as her eyes glow a pale, brilliant green. Alarms floods through him. "Professor? What is happening?" She cups her cheek comfortingly, her eyes alight with worry. He wishes he could enjoy it, but it seems as though she is shimmering, her body becoming immaterial right before his eyes.

"It will be alright, Dedue. Just trust me." She shuts her eyes as he calls for her again.

But she does not seem to hear him.

* * *

There are many words that Dedue does not expect to hear as he stands besides the professor in the evening chill of the Goddess Tower. First, of course, there is the fact that he did not intend on coming here tonight at all, but the sound of the professor's footsteps made him curious enough to follow.

How strange that when he approaches her, she turns and looks at him before he even makes his presence known, as though she knew he was coming.

He dismisses it. Perhaps she noticed him leave the ballroom after her own departure.

Dedue asks the burning question on his mind.

"What are you doing here?"

* * *

**A/N: And there it is, my spicy take on Dedue not mourning aloud in-game. I would do anything to see Dedue get comfort or support from an adult character since he's lost... you know. Everything and everyone he's ever loved.**

**Anyway! I take requests for Bydue! Or if you'd like, feel free to vote in the poll for the type of Bydue you'd like to see! I love feedback of any kind, but especially comments/reviews.**

**Every review you leave, 50% of the proceeds go the Duscur Rebuilding Project. ;^)**


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